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Pile-on: GameSpy Invades Northrend

After an in-depth hands-on with the latest World of Warcraft expansion, our resident explorers speak out.

Earlier this week GameSpy visited Blizzard headquarters to gawk at the artwork lining the walls and to get some serious hands-on time with the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. WoW has continued to build on its own phenomenal success, passing 10 million paid subscribers within a few months of the release of the first expansion, Burning Crusade. Will the next expansion keep the momentum going? See our extensive preview and interview with a co-designer for more details, and read on as we talk about the future of WoW.

A New Continent to Conquer

Fargo:Lich King adds a third continent to the game world, one that features prominently in Warcraft III: the frozen wasteland of Northrend. What did you guys think of the new areas? My first reaction was awe at the sheer scale of the new landmass. This is much bigger than Outland. For example, Bryn and I hopped up on our mounts and started running. We ran across the harbor, wound our way up a giant fortress built around a waterfall, took an aerial gondola ride a few miles to the coast, met a new race called the Tuskarr, swam up the shore to witness a pirate fleet in the midst of a sea battle, ran inland to uncover an archaeological dig where we flew some planes around, raced through an undead area, and then... hit the edge of the first zone. This expansion is absolutely massive; people should definitely feel they're getting a lot of value out of this.

Howling Fjord

Gerald: I was impressed by the size of the new zones, but more intrigued by the amount of content that Blizzard is squeezing into them. My most memorable example is Dragonblight, described to us as an Elephant Graveyard of sorts: home of the five Dragon Aspects and where older dragons go to die. Absolutely massive dragon bones littered the landscape, and I'm sure the goblins are considering the profitability of draconian scrimshaw. The five dragonflights all have a role in this area, and I'm especially excited about getting my feet in the sand to encounter Nozdormu of the Bronze Dragonflight, possibly leading to a time-traveling adventure like those in the Caverns of Time.

Making zones bigger doesn't necessarily make them any better, but the zones I was able to explore were packed with towns, both friendly and hostile, and plenty of variety between quest hubs and points of interest so that you won't feel that you're fighting the same three creature types ad nauseam. The floating necropolis of Naxxramas has also been relocated here, and since I was never able to clear it the first time around in the pre-Burning Crusade days, I'm looking forward to tackling what many consider to be some of Blizzard's best encounter designs.